


don’t waste another mile or minute (not kissing me)

by nostalgicplant



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Dorks in Love, Established Relationship, Friday Night Lights AU, High School AU, M/M, Safe KL Exchange, overwhelming amounts of country music, this is a very odd niche called friday night lights texas high school prom au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-23 10:56:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20241703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nostalgicplant/pseuds/nostalgicplant
Summary: The high school star quarterback and the associated student body president fall in love.Or at least, that's what the Hallmark movie summary would be.Here's the truth: Keith and Lance are in love, Allura and Romelle are in love but don't know it yet, there's a few night drives in pickup trucks, and prom shakes everything up.





	don’t waste another mile or minute (not kissing me)

**Author's Note:**

> Surprise Wren!!! I'm sorry it took me until 15 minutes before the deadline to have this to you but TA-DA! For the prompts "established klance being soft & lance helping allura ask romelle out" which I combined because I wanted BOTH.  
Okay uhhh basically for some reason I've been wanting to write something kind of like this lately and the yeehaw really popped out in me there, so for the grievous country music in this, I apologize. Just imagine it's Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus instead of the original artists. IDK. You do you.  
Title from [Make It Sweet](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ9L4PewTuY) by Old Dominion  
Anyways, enjoy!

Light. An unusual amount of light. Keith throws his elbow over his face as he peels his eyes open, wincing as the sun blasts through an open window.

Which is odd. Because there’s a huge oak tree in front of the window in Keith’s room, big enough to shade the morning sun even though he lives on the fourth floor. Big enough for Lance to scramble up when it’s late at night and Keith doesn’t want to bother with Krolia’s questions the next morning.

Lance. Pressed against Keith’s back, one arm thrown haphazardly around his waist. He’s all but completely stolen the light sheet that they’d fallen asleep with. He doesn’t miss it - even this early in the morning, the familiar weight of a humid Texas summer clings to Keith’s body.

Keith closes his eyes again, pressed himself back against Lance’s chest, trying to remember why the hell he woke up in the first place. He’s a half second away from drifting off again when the door to Lance’s bedroom slams open.

Oh shit. Lance’s bedroom.

Keith sits bolt upright, grabbing for the sheet that Lance has monopolized, desperately trying to yank the sheet over his bare chest as Veronica McClain stands in the doorway, lips pursed like she’s trying not to laugh as she takes in the scene in front of her.

“Well good morning!” Veronica crows. “I see Lance had some company last night.”

Lance, face pressed into the pillow, lets out a muffled groan. “Go away Veronica.”

Keith, mortified, elbows Lance, who props himself up enough for Keith to get a good hold of the sheet and yank it over the rest of his body. He thanks the father, son, holy ghost, and Lance’s mom’s entire wall of crosses in their living room that he slept with his boxers on.

“Okay, but you guys have like, five minutes until mom comes busting in here and you get grounded for like, ever.” Veronica steps inside the room, reaching for something on Lance’s desk. “Nothing personal Keith. Also, Lance, for the last time, stop stealing my nail polish. You think I don’t notice mijo, but nothing gets past me.” She waves a bottle of iridescent blue that matches the paint on Lance’s nails and steps out of the doorway, slamming the bedroom door behind her.

“Get up,” Keith hisses. Lance opens his eyes halfway, hair going in every direction, his face pressed with the indents of the pillow. “We fell asleep. It’s morning.”

Keith swings himself out of bed, hopping over the textbook he’d apparently fallen asleep reading last night and grabbing his clothes off the floor. T-shirt (stained), shorts (covered in grease), and socks (stinky). He’d come over to Lance’s house last night, climbed in his window like a regular boyfriend-gone-cat-burglar, and tried to get Lance to help him study for his AP bio exam. Operative word – tried, because Lance fell asleep two hours in with Keith’s flashcards still in his hands, mumbling about cellular respiration.

Keith had tucked Lance in and settled against the headboard, combing one hand through his boyfriend’s hair and using the other to flick through the textbook. And then, you know, apparently fall asleep and spent the night too, which is explicitly against Mama McClain’s Official Dating Rules. And as much as Keith loves Carmen McClain, he totally still fears her wrath.

“No good morning kisses?” Lance gripes from the bed. “Mondays really are the worst.”

Keith tosses a wadded-up shirt at him. “Lance, up. We have-” Keith risks a glance at the clock on Lance’s desk. “-Shit. We have thirty minutes until the first period bell rings and I don’t have my jersey, so I’m going to have to run home, but I have bio first period and I have a test, so I can’t go home, and also I don’t have my calc textbook, Mr. Smythe is going to kill me, and-”

“Honey.” Lance says, now sitting completely up. “Sweetheart.” He untangles himself from the covers, shoving the mess of fabric onto the floor and opening the top drawer of his dresser. Keith watches, fingers tightly clenched around the strap of his backpack, as Lance withdraws a folded red jersey. He turns to Keith, looks him dead in the eyes, and unfurls the jersey.

KOGANE

26

“Darling,” Lance says dryly. “You really think that I haven’t squirreled off one of your jerseys after dating you this long? Really? Ye of little faith.”

Keith rushes forward and tugs the sleek red fabric out of Lance’s hands. “I could kiss you,” he says, voice wrought with relief. “Iverson verbally murdering me at practice is the last thing I need today.”

“I mean, you could kiss me, techni- mmph.” Keith reaches out and pulls Lance in by the waist, closing the distance between their bodies and lips. Lance recovers from his startle quickly, leaning into the kiss and looping his arms around Keith’s neck, touting the jersey all the while.

Keith pulls away a moment later. They’re an inch apart, panting softly, sticky from the damp air and layer of sweat from the already-hot May air. Lance has morning breath. Keith’s long hair is tangled and going in every direction. It, by all means, shouldn’t be romantic at all.

But when Lance leans back in, dipping his head down the half inch the he lords over Keith.

(“Would you believe it? I’m taller than the best quarterback in the state.”

“Lance, I swear to god, it’s a half inch.”

“It’s an inch.”

“No, it’s really not.”)

Their lips press together again and all the tension in Keith’s muscles bleeds out. Everything, for just that moment, slips away.

* * *

The worst thing about May has to be the abundance of promposals. And that’s even though AP tests, college decisions, and state championships all also fall in May.

“This is just embarrassing,” Pidge says from beside Keith, books tight to their chest as they frown at the spectacle in front of them.

There, propped against the stairs to enter Altea High, is Kenny Carmichael playing an absolutely horrific rendition of Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours” on a ukulele.

Or at least that’s what Keith thinks it is. It’s kind of hard to tell between the chords he keeps missing and his girlfriend’s excited shrieking.

“Have I ever mentioned how much I hate straight people?” Pidge asks, looking at Keith. “Can you use your godly quarterback powers to like, remove him from this dimension?”

Keith sighs, watching as Kenny finishes his serenade (finally) and pulls a bouquet of battered red roses from behind his back. His girlfriend shrieks (again). Keith finds it hard to relate to her excitement. Thinking about prom just settles an iron weight in his stomach.

“Aaaand cue the making out. Gross.” Pidge runs commentary as they approach the scene, squinting to get a better look at the couple as they pass by and head for the much less promposal-infested East entrance. “Oh, speaking of, have you figured out how you’re going to ask Lance yet?”

So there’s that. The single reason that every time Keith thinks about prom, an anvil settles over his vital organs. Him and Lance alternate asking each other to dances, they have since the incident sophomore year where Lance’s date ditched him the night before spring fling. Keith had scrapped together some glitter glue and butcher’s paper, then stood under his window with a boombox on his shoulder playing that one country song Lance (and like, the whole rest of Texas) was obsessed with as loud as it would go. They got together the following summer. And who said romance was dead?

But this is different. This is their senior prom - their last high school dance together – and Keith wants to do something more memorable than make a crappy sign or tragically serenade Lance on the front steps of the school. He deserves so much better than that.

Keith kicks at a lone weed sprouting from a crack in the pavement. “I’m still working on it.”

“I’m telling you; you should totally just arrange a bunch of bales of hay in a field that spell out ‘PROM’ and then bang in the bed of his truck. It’s very avant-garde.”

“I hate you.”

“It’s a universal experience.”

* * *

The day passes in a blur. Keith spends most of it scrambling to get a foothold. First, he slams his finger in his locker. Then he forgets a pencil for his bio exam and has to ask to borrow one from Lotor, who smells so strongly of Axe body spray that Keith gets a headache and ends up bubbling in ‘C’ for the last 10 questions. Then he realizes he left his math textbook at home. And didn’t pack a lunch. And also his jeans totally have motor oil on them, which is fine, except someone asked him where he got jeans that were ‘that authentically vintage.’ And if there is one phrase to describe Keith Kogane, it is certainly not that string of words.

Stepping into seventh period, his last class of the day, Keith collapses into his seat with a groan closes his eyes, and leans back. Except Mr. Waseb thinks the standard-issue desks where the chairs are connected to the table are stupid. So when Keith leans back, the chair follows him.

He’s about a foot into his freefall, which is either going to hurt like hell or straight up kill him (Keith votes for the latter), when he collides into something that stops his descent.

Keith peels his eyes open and looks up. Lance is standing behind him, the top of the chair and Keith’s head resting against his stomach. He’s holding a thick black binder in his arms, keeping Keith alive with the sheer power of his torso.

Not that Keith needed reminding of how great Lance’s torso was.

“Is this the part of Spiderman where we kiss upside down?” Lance asks, smiling as he rocks the chair forward and lowers Keith to the ground.

“Hng,” Keith says as he rests both feet against the linoleum.

From across the room, another voice joins in. “Please don’t make out in my classroom.” Mr. Waseb gives them a pointed look. “Again.”

“That was one time!” Lance protests. “Like, a year ago.”

“Yeah,” Allura says. Keith jolts. He hadn’t noticed her coming in, but she’s sitting on top of a desk now, pink pen tucked behind one ear and a blank notebook on her lap. “And we’re all still scarred from it. There’s nothing like leading half the Associated Student Body in here to make posters and finding,” she waves in their general direction, “that happening.”

Lance opens his mouth again, presumably to rally back, but Keith beats him to it.

“Adam isn’t allowed to talk. Once-

“Keith, keep talking and I’ll fail you.”

“-I forgot my house key at the shop-

“I’ll get Shiro to make you work nights for the next _month_.”

“-And came back to get it-

“I will seriously break into your house and put all your underwear in the freezer.”

“-I found him and Shiro-”

Adam holds up his iPhone to display Shiro’s contact. “Do not make me call your brother in the middle of the school day to come pick you up for talking back to a teacher.”

Keith winces. Shiro memorably came to pick him up from school in eighth grade because he was being a little shit and made _express_ purpose to embarrass Keith in front of everyone by wearing the world’s most awful mix of a visor, a neon Hawaiian shirt, and lime green bermudas while publicly hiking him across the quad to his car. If that was the damage he could do five years ago, imagine what he would do with all the blackmail he has on Keith now. 

Allura, across the room, is stifling a laugh. Keith can feel Lance wheezing in delight behind him.

Adam gives Keith one more withering glare before locking his phone and turning back to his desk.

“And you wonder why we’re scared of him,” Lance says, stepping around Keith’s (thankfully grounded) chair and plopping himself on his desk.

Keith snorts. “You aren’t scared of him. Adam won’t actually come for you unless you’ve done something totally out of line.”

“Point,” Lance replies. “Like last year, when he got that Zarkon kid suspended for harassing the freshmen in the GSA.”

“Mmm, exactly.” Keith reaches into his backpack and tugs out his English notebook. Papers scatter around the floor, free from being loosely shoved in between pages. He sighs and reaches for the closest one.

Keith can feel Lance’s eyes on him as he shoves the handouts back into his backpack and tosses the notebook onto the desk. It flips open to display Keith’s messy writing and haphazardly highlighted notes.

“All you wrote for ‘Shakespear Biography,’ which you spelled wrong, by the way, was ‘probably gay.’” Lance notes, flipping over a page. “How the hell do you have an A in this class?”

“Because writing essays about the homoeroticism in classic literature is a lot more interesting than writing about some shit like gas exchange.

“I’ll show you gas exchange!”

“I hate you,” Keith deadpans, but his lips crack with the hint of a smile.

The bell signaling the end of the passing period rings. Lance hops off the desk, turning around to face Keith. His eyes are like soft honey, and Keith is melting. Lance, with his frat-boy tank top and snapback, the splattering of freckles across his nose, the dimples only his cheeks that only come out when he’s really smiling. Lance, who scoops Keith off the floor and turns his bad mood around just by being there.

His Lance, who gives him a dimpled smile as he walks backwards, dodging incoming students diving into desk chairs and awry copies of _Frankenstein. _His Lance, who sets the binder on Adam desk, who blows a kiss to Allura as he heads toward the door.

His Lance, who just before leaving, looks back at Keith. Then, soft as anything, like they’re lying in Lance’s bed and staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars pressed to his ceiling instead of the middle of a muggy high school classroom - says: “Nah, I don’t think you do.”

Lance’s lanky frame and curly hair disappear out the door. Keith stares at his wake, fingers curled around the edge of his desk, wondering how on Earth he ever deserved this boy. What barter he’d made at the crossroads in a past life.

“-your books to Chapter 12, please, and you’ll be doing a ten-minute graded cold write on the link between the monstrosity of Frankenstein’s monster and the othering of people outside of the dominant social spheres.” Adam waves a battered copy of Frankenstein to catch the attention of the class. Keith reaches down into his backpack to grab his book. “Ready?” He finds nothing.

“Ad-Mr. Waseb?” Keith calls, a punctuated smile growing on his face. This is revenge for threatening to call Shiro on him. He’s about to commit the gravest sin a high school student in an English class can accomplish. “I left my book at home.”

If looks could kill, Keith would seriously have had his ass kicked.

* * *

Shiro is under the belly of a beat-up Toyota when Keith walks into the shop with the radio turned to the station that only plays eighties hits as he works. Keith sighs, internally prepares for four hours of Shiro’s off-key singing to Cyandi Lauper and tosses his football bag onto the floor with a thump that ricochets so loud that it startles Shiro into banging his head against the bottom of the car.

Shiro wheels himself out from under the car, rubbing the soot-smeared spot on his temple and looking supremely tired.

Keith winces. “Hi Shiro.”

“Hey you,” he greets. “Glad you’re here. I’m totally under caffeinated and this Corolla is going to be the last straw that sends me to the grave.”

Keith grabs his tool belt off the wall and cinches it around his waist. He unties a grease-stained red bandana from the buckle and uses it to pull back his hair before squatting down next to Shiro to examine the car.

Shiro is still rubbing the spot on his forehead. “It’s a busted oil pan.” He says. “Except the thing is a piece of junk and every time I try and weld the new pan on, something else breaks.”

“Mm,” Keith hums, rapping his fingers along the car’s tarnished bumper. “Mind if I take a look?”

Shiro rolls the rest of the way out and gestures to the dolly. “Be my guest.”

This is familiar, working in the garage with Shiro after class and the on weekends he doesn’t have games, ribbing each other back and forth and fighting for control over the radio. This isn’t the haze of his future; this is something tangible. Something he can feel, from the smell of superheated metal to the heavy weight of the wrench in his right hand.

Keith’s muscles ache as he lays on his back and rolls under the car, clicking on his headlamp as he does. True to Shiro’s word, the new oil pan sits half-fastened to the undercarriage of the car, unable to be rigged completely because of the parsed metal around it. He taps one particularly rusted spot, and a hail of metal flakes dust his shirt.

“Pass me the welder,” Keith calls, and a few seconds later, a welding mask and tool are rolled under.

This is familiar. The loud chatter of the welder as it grates against the metal. The sparks flying in every direction. The familiar singe of awry hot metal bouncing off his skin. The sticky stillness of the night punctuated only by Keith and Shiro’s clamor and the occasional wails of Pat Benatar on the radio. This is nothing like the unfamiliar college scouts approaching him after games, the awkward silence in the kitchen between him and Krolia during breakfast, or the hiss of panic that comes every time Keith thinks about prom.

This is just him and Shiro, throwing wrenches at each other from underneath cars, wiping grease off the palms of their hands onto stained rags, talking in circles.

“How was practice?” Shiro asks, passing Keith a wire.

Keith shrugs, then remembers that Shiro can’t see him, and replies: “Okay. Coach has us doing a lot of drills with the game so close.”

“Do you feel ready for state?”

Keith thinks of his team, a group of ragtag teenagers in red jerseys, throwing footballs across the field and dumping Gatorade on their coach after all their big wins. He thinks of Hernandez today, hopping out to the grass on his crutches, offering moral support and timing whistle drills even after he busted his ACL in the semifinal game. The team bowling nights that Hunk, the star linebacker and Lance’s best friend, organizes every month.

He thinks of practice today, where he led drills and formations up and back the field with the whole team rallying behind him, even in the brutal late afternoon sun.

“I think the team is ready.” Keith replies, carefully. Because when he thinks about the team, it’s impossible not to think about the headlines on the town paper the day after a game, his last name and jersey number stapled to the front page. It’s impossible not to think about the scouts and the growing pile of unopened envelopes on his desks. It’s impossible not to think about the future, whatever comes after this, if anything at all.

And Shiro, because he knows Keith like no one else, knows that something is wrong. Shiro, who has pulled Keith out of fights at flag football and brought him ice cream after his first boyfriend dumped him (Cory Miller, 9th grade, total asshole), reaches under the car and yanks Keith out by the sleeve of his shirt.

Keith winces at the harsh LED shop lights above. “What, Shiro?”

Shiro studies him for a moment. “Are you really worried about the game?”

“I mean, yeah,” Keith mumbles. “I don’t want to _lose.”_

“Or are you more worried about the season ending?”

Keith doesn’t answer, and counts the gnats circling the overhead lights instead. One, two, three, four – no, three, that one just got itself fried – now four, five, six.

“Keith.” Shiro sighs. He rests the tip of the alan wrench in his hand on Keith’s left shoulder. “No one actually knows what they want to do out of high school.”

_Everyone else does_, Keith thinks bitterly. Allura, going to Cambridge for Conflict and Peace Studies, Hunk, going to Davis for engineering, Pidge, Keith’s longtime friend and fellow senior, going to MIT for data science, and Lance. Lance, who must have sent in his acceptance to _somewhere_ that Keith doesn’t know about.

They made the pact back in November, when they were both starting to send in applications around the country. Lance, applying for marine biology, carefully writing and rewriting his essays before folding them into crisp thirds and mailing them off. Keith, applying undecided, scrawling something about football and found family before playing the equivalent of college-choice roulette and sending off his applications to the first ten schools his guidance counselor recommended.

Anyways. They decided not to tell each other where they were applying, partially to keep from influencing each other and partially to pretend that this – this hazy high school dream – would never end.

If there is no written script to follow, who is to say what the ending will be?

“Keith,” Shiro echoes. He whaps Keith with the wrench again. “Seriously. Most of the kids who think they have everything together out of high school are going to end up changing their majors, or schools, or career paths. You’re not supposed to know how your life is going to turn out when you’re eighteen. That would ruin the surprise.”

“I guess.” Keith sighs. “I just. Wish that I knew what I wanted.”

“You and me both, kid,” Shiro replies. Keith looks up to where Shiro is tucking the wrench into his belt and rising to his feet. His left arm, scarred and disfigured, rests against the denim of his jeans. Before Shiro was shot out of the sky by enemy fire on a mission in Afghanistan, before Shiro joined the Air Force, even before Shiro graduated college, Keith knew that he wanted to train pilots. Shiro used to pin photos of Czech Sport Sportcruisers and Tecnam P2008s onto his wall and recite the flight test manual under his breath when he drove Keith to school.

Except now, all Shiro has is a purple heart, an arm and a half, and an expired pilot’s license that he hasn’t renewed.

Now, Shiro is the operations manager at an auto repair shop where he spends his days under the bellies of cars, fixing motors and replacing brake pads.

They work in silence for a good stretch of time. Keith measures the passing hours by the switching radio hosts. 80s pop dissolves into 80s rock. Shiro gets tired of the 80s (_finally_, Keith thinks) and puts on a country station _(I’ll kill you_, Keith thinks). They tinker with the Corolla in front of them until it can serviceably drive.

“Hey, did you ever decide how you’re asking Lance to prom? Adam mentioned something about it the other day.” Shiro asks as he pulls the car up next to Keith.

“Ugh,” Keith grunts.

Shiro turns it off. “So that’s a no?”

“I just.” Keith tosses his hands in the air. “Every idea I have seems stupid. Or too cheesy. Or like it’s straight out of a Teen Vogue article on ’20 Best Promposals’”

Shiro raises an eyebrow. “Yes,” Keith sighs, “I did read that. And for the record, I’m not choreographing a dance routine and getting all our mutual friends to dance in the quad while holding umbrellas that spell out ‘PROM?’”

“And you’re still stressed about this?” Shiro asks. “He’s going to say yes, you know.”

Keith toes a scuff on the floor. “I know. I know he’ll say yes even if I like, pass him one of those ‘check yes’ notes in class. It isn’t a big deal for us, really.”

“But?”

Keith fidgets. “But I want it to be special. I want him to remember it.” He unclenches his jaw. “I want it to be good.”

“I’ve been telling you the same thing since you first brought this up, like, two months ago, Keith. Just do something from the heart. You’re not going to find something special on the internet or in a magazine. If you want it to be personal, it’s got to be something special to you two. And even if it isn’t the fanciest or more elaborate thing, he’s going to love it because _he loves you_.” Shiro says, pauses, then continues. “That’s how I asked Adam to marry me.”

It’s sound advice. Except for one part.

“Didn’t you ask Adam to marry you when you were high off your ass after you had your wisdom teeth removed?” Keith says. “Didn’t you cry so hard you threw up and then proposed to him on the bathroom floor?”

Shiro points the keys of the Corolla at Keith. “Exactly. I said from the heart, didn’t I?”

Keith is finishing up the paperwork and leaning against the side of the car while Shiro cleans up when someone comes rattling into the shop driveway. The car turns off, the motor _click click clicking_ as it cools.

“We’re closed.” Keith calls, not bothering to look up. It’s ten at night. Can some jackass wait until tomorrow to get a new tire put on?

“Guess I’ll come back later then,” the owner says, swinging his keys as he walks into the garage. Keith looks up. The figure looks angelic even in the harsh fluorescent lights.

“Lance,” Keith breathes. Which is a little bit embarrassing, you know? Your boyfriend walks into your line of sight and you’re instantly breathless? Keith feels like a Bronte character. “What – why are you here?”

Lance shrugs. “I can’t come see my boyfriend after he gets off work?” He winks and and peers at the repair sheet of the Corolla. “Oh yikes, busted oil pan? And hey, speaking of busted, my power steering is out. Again.”

Keith fixes him with a pointed glare. “And you didn’t call me?” He looks out to the driveway, where Lance’s familiar hand-me-down Prius sits, parked haphazardly presumably since Lance could barely steer.

“You were working!” Lance tosses his hands in the air. “And I texted you.”

Keith blinks, and reaches into his pocket to withdraw his phone. He curses himself - never turned it off silent after practice.

True to his word, there’s a collection of messages from Lance.

**lance**

_hope practice was okay !! have fun at work ! say hi to shiro for me! (5:09)_

_oh my god allura won’t stop talking about prom decorations. she’s texting me from across the pool. doesn’t she have better things to do, like save little kidlakdhf (5:23)_

_shit, sorry, actually thought a kid was drowning there (5:24)_

_false alarm. he’s just a dick who started a water fight (5:24)_

_I’ll let you work! love u! (5:33)_

_haha so like what do I hypothetically do if my car won’t turn like… at all (9:44)_

_p sure it’s the power steering again. I guess duct tape does not, in fact, fix everything (9:46)_

_hello darling? I could really use some car wisdom rn (9:55)_

_kk I’m hot so I’m coming to the shop and if I die on the way there you get to explain that to Carmen (9:57)_

And just two from Krolia.

**Krolia**

_Will you be home for dinner tonight? I’m making lasagna. (6:31)_

_I guess not. Left some in the microwave for you to reheat. (8:02)_

“Sorry,” Keith says, wincing. “I didn’t turn my phone off vibrate after practice.”

“I get it,” Lance says, winding an arm around Keith’s waist. “I’ve seen Kolivan yell at you guys before, I’d be scared for my life too.”

Keith opens his mouth to defend Kolivan – say something about how Kolivan is only tough because he cares or some bullshit like that – but the sound of the door separating the shop from the stale air of the office slams closed and startles the both of them.

Shiro jogs down the steps, tool belt and overalls stowed in the break room, staring at his phone. “Are you done with that receipt? Let’s go – oh hey, Lance!”

“Hey Shiro,” Lance says with a grin. “Guess whose car broke again?”

“Yours,” Shiro says at the same time Keith says “done!” and rips the receipt off the notepad. “Finally, Jesus.” He tucks the yellow slip under the windshield wipers.

Lance gives his waist a soft squeeze. Keith leans into him, relishing the first peaceful moment he’s had since he woke up panicked in Lance’s bed this morning.

“Want me to look at your car while Keith cleans up?” Shiro offers, already reaching for the flashlight tucked in the waistband of his jeans. Lance starts to wave him off, but Shiro is already in motion toward Polly, Lance’s ancient Prius that belonged to pretty much every other family member before it was his.

Keith absolutely loathes the thing. First of all, she’s a Prius. That’s one strike of its own right there. Second, no matter how much Lance brags about getting great gas mileage, he spends what he would have saved on gas fixing the damn thing, even though Shiro refuses to charge him for anything but the wholesale cost of the parts. Third, it breaks down all the time. Which is kind of his second point, except Polly can’t seem to roll for more than two weeks without blowing a gasket or having a battery malfunction. Keith is sick of working on her.

And finally, perhaps her most heinous crime. It was in the backseat of that tiny, beat-up, most un-sexy vehicle that Keith lost his virginity.

Not that it really matters. The whole virginity thing.

Except it does, because Keith is a car guy, and the first time he ever got some was in a fucking _Prius._

Keith stuffs his dirty coveralls into his backpack, vowing to throw them in the washing machine tonight and accepting that he’s absolutely going to forget.

“Hey,” he says, switching off the lights behind him as he leaves the office and locks the door. “Is she dead yet?”

Lance is perched on Polly’s hood, amicably kicking the tire with his heels as he tilts back to look at the stars. The harsh glow of the shop lights bathe half of Lance’s face in luminescent brightness. Right now, he’s all glowing tan skin and sharp jaw lines, but it’s on evenings like this, where Lance swings by after work to bring Keith dinner, or Keith stops by the pool at lunch with a milkshake, that Keith thinks he can see someone else in the lights.

Like if he holds his eyes closed long enough, Lance will still be there in 10 years, perched on the hood of a car, smiling through his words, still staring at the night sky.

Shiro, banging around on the dashboard and flipping switches, calls back. “It’s the power steering for sure. I think the plastic on the circuit cover just melted, so if we replace that he should be fine.”

“Oh darn,” Lance says, turning to Keith. “It looks like Polly will roll another day.”

Keith scrubs his face with his hands. It isn’t until he pulls away that he notices the oil smudges decorating his palms, and now his forehead.

From inside the belly of Polly, Shiro looks up and laughs. “We’re twins!” He points to their oil stained temples. He flips him off.

* * *

Keith reaches out to turn on the radio as he pulls out of the gravel lot of Blades Autos, which really reads Bla es Autos at this point. The ‘d’ has been missing since long before Shiro and Keith were old enough to make jokes about it. No one seems to care enough to fix it – not Mondo the owner, not Shiro the manager, and certainly not Keith, who works part time. And everyone knows part timers don’t give a shit about what happens when they’re off the clock.

The first time Lance had seen the missing letter, he had cackled, all fourteen years of wisecrack jokes and shouted “BLAZE IT” for all the world to hear. All the world and most unfortunately, Shiro, who still hasn’t stopped calling the shop “Blaze It” instead of _literally anything_ else.

As if he can read Keith’s mind, Lance waves to the dark building from the passenger seat and chirps, “bye Blaze It!” as they turn onto the highway.

Keith sighs and reaches for the radio dial again, one hand draped out the window and his knee pressed into the hard-plastic steering wheel. “If you call it that again, I’m turning on the Christian channel.”

“Oh, come on,” Lance huffs. “Admit that it’s funny.” He leans forward and bats Keith’s hands away from the radio dial, where he’s spinning through channels, half looking for the Christian channel just to bother Lance and half looking for something that’s actually good. Out here, most radio channels have melted into static. The airwaves are so far apart that you can only hear snippets and ghosts of the words that were there before.

Sometimes, Keith feels like a ghost out here. Last week, they had a pep rally for their upcoming game. He came jogging in with the team, the whole gymnasium roaring with applause for the damn highlight of their entire lives, can you imagine? A high school football legacy that you carry on your breast forever.

He sees the middle-aged men in the grocery store, in the church aisles, in the snack hut line for the game, greying at the temples and sporting a week-old shave. They all recite the same line. ‘Back when _I _played, we almost made it to state. Woulda made it, I bet, if I hadn’t torn my rotator cuff/broke my ankle/came down with a case of senioritis so bad I was actually hospitalized.’

What is a ghost? Keith feels like he can not only be seen but also seen through. If that is a ghost – the semi blurred figure, lingering in the past and living in the present – is that what Keith is heading toward? A future of tugged-down baseball caps and hands that never lose the shine of grease. That’s what Keith always saw coming. And it always tasted sweet, like the familiar of the ice cream shop downtown or Shiro’s crooked smile.

But now, Lance is switching stations until he finds one that doesn’t scream static and cranking up the volume with a grin so big his eyes crinkle up at the corners. Now, Lance is singing along to the stupid country song on the radio. Now, Lance is applying for schools to study marine biology. And not now, but soon, Lance will be going to school somewhere Keith knows will be sunny and hot and near the water. Somewhere that isn’t a dusty town in north Texas, population 7000. Somewhere that doesn’t hold all Keith’s memories in its humid palms.

“Hey, turn left here,” Lance says as they roll to a stop at an intersection. Keith looks down at the flickering streetlights in the opposite direction of Lance’s house.

But because he knows Lance, and he loves Lance, and because driving around in his truck listening to music holding Lance’s hand is always infinitely better than doing homework or sleeping.

This has always been their _thing_. Driving around in Keith’s old red pickup truck, getting midnight snacks in diners and driving out to the hills to watch meteor showers. Trying to teach Lance how to drive stick and subsequently rolling backwards down a hill into a brush thicket. Calling Shiro to tow them out of the ditch off the I-5 South. Making Shiro explain to Adam why they were late for school.

The truck rattles down the road. Lance points to the next right turn. Keith obliges, and a minute later, they pull into the parking lot of Altea’s city pool.

“Did you forget something at work?” Keith asks, shutting the car off.

“Sort of.” Lance releases Keith’s hand pops the door open and hops out of the truck. The vicious grin is back on his face. “Come with me.”

They jog across the dark of the asphalt and to the side gate. On the other side of the ten-foot wire fence is the rippling turquoise of three hundred thousand gallons of water. Lance slips his key into the lock and presses the metal door open. Keith follows, traipsing across the pool deck to follow Lance to the office.

Along the desk wall is a series of switches. Lance flicks one with a practiced ease and the pool in front of them blinks to life.

Keith stares at him.

“What? I thought we’d go for a swim. You had a shitty day, and besides, it’s hot as balls out here.” Lance says, reaching around to the nape of his tank top and yanking it over his head. “Keith, this is the time you turn on the sexy music!” He says, laughing, brushing past Keith, yanking off his shorts, and promptly cannon-balling into the pool in only his boxers.

Still standing in the door of the office, Keith finds himself laughing.

Lance breaks the surface, tossing his hair back and forth and scattering water in every direction. “Come on!” He shouts. “It’s nice in here!”

Keith is pulling off his shirt and stepping out of his jeans a moment later. He half tumbles to the poolside, thick summer air kissing his bare skin as he goes. He dives in, met by cool water and muted lights.

When he comes back up, Lance is treading water in front of him, smiling while water droplets run down his forehead and the column of his throat. Keith wants to press kisses to both places.

“How long has it been since we’ve done this? What were we, sophomores, the time we got caught by the cops?”

“Oh my god,” Lance replies. “I thought we agreed not to bring that up. It was a traumatic incident. Explaining that to my manager the next day was the closest I’ve ever come to legitimately peeing my pants in fear.”

Keith laughs at the memory, remembering how he called Shiro from the precinct phone while standing in the icy air-conditioned room, damp clothes sticking to his skin in all the wrong places. How he’d had to explain that he needed to be picked up from the police station for trespassing on private property. How Shiro and Adam had both come to pick him up, Shiro’s eyes still heavy laden with sleep and boredom from having to pick Keith up from disciplinary action _again. _And Adam beside him – at the beginning of him and Shiro’s relationship, Keith remembers – carrying two jackets, one for Keith and the other for Lance.

“Didn’t you make Veronica come get you?” Keith reminisces.

“Yeah, and she used her fake ID to pretend like she was old enough to actually pick me up. She’s still redeeming favors from that incident.”

They both laugh, voices tangling together and drifting away on the night breeze. Keith looks up at the sky, and Lance follows suit. Above them, the sky is mottled with pinpricks of stars and the Milky Way is splashed across the cosmos.

“Hey,” Keith says, looking back at Lance. He’s still staring up at the sky, absentmindedly treading water with a practiced ease that Keith can only hope to replicate. He’s kind of starting to feel like he’s drowning. “Thank you. For this.”

Lance looks back at him. His eyes are kind, a warm honey brown that reminds Keith of dirt roads and cups of cheap diner coffee with a splash of cream. Like all the good memories that Keith has stuffed inside his pockets.

He loves him. He loves him so much that his chest aches with it. Lance, here, swimming in the moonlight, bare-chested and illuminated by cheap florescent pool lights, is the most beautiful thing that Keith has ever seen.

Lance, who knows Keith so well that he doesn’t even have to tell him when he’s feeling off, or stressed, or tired, Lance, who just _knows_, Lance who just gives, Lance who just loves.

There are no words to describe the way he loves Lance. And if there are, Keith will spend the rest of his life searching for them.

“Yeah,” Lance says softly. “Of course. Are you doing okay?”

“Just stressed.” Keith says. _About prom. About asking you to prom. About not being good enough to be remembered. About the game this weekend, and the game at the end of the month. About a future that everyone contributed to but me. About high school ending but not knowing where the next beginning is. _“I’ll be okay.”

The way Lance looks at him, Keith knows that he sees right through his flimsy explanation. But he doesn’t push it. “I’m here if you want to talk about it, yeah?” Lance says. And then, reaching forward to cup his dripping palm onto Keith’s cheek: “I love you.”

Lance’s hand is cool against his skin. Keith closes his eyes and tries to commit every detail of this moment to memory.

“I love you too.”

Keith, selfishly, wishes the moment would never end.

* * *

Lance sits propped on top of one of the shitty student desks while he munches on his lunch (peanut butter and jelly sandwich) and does his damn best to drive Adam insane (the usual).

“I’m just saying,” Lance says through a mouthful of half-chewed sandwich. “I really think that pyrotechnics would be a great touch for the couple’s photos this year.”

Adam, who is trying to grade a stack of increasingly red-marked papers, peers up over the rim of his glasses with a look that can only be described as ‘ready for death.’

“No?” Lance asks, and crosses something off the notebook open in his lap. He taps to the next bullet point. “We still need to get the senior class to vote on prom court.”

Keith watches Lance scrawl something in the margins as Adam suggests that they try and do some kind of online system this year. They’re volleying ideas back and forth, which would probably be a lot more interesting to Keith if he was actually _on_ ASB, or Prom Committee, or had any reason to be hanging out in Adam’s class during lunch that wasn’t to see Lance. Usually Pidge, Hunk, and Allura join them, but Pidge is home sick, Hunk is making up a chemistry test, and Allura is off doing vice-president things.

So it’s just him, Adam, Lance, and the crumbs of Lance’s sandwich pooling on the floor below him.

Keith fiddles with the cover of Grapes of Wrath, his old copy dog-eared and underlined. He has a pile of unfinished math homework in his backpack that’s due next period but can’t bring himself to commit to trying to learn a week’s worth of Calculus in the next forty-five minutes. There are some perks to being the star quarterback of the football team - none of his teachers are willing to fail him out of fear that he won’t be allowed to play.

“What do you think, Keith?” Lance asks, apparently having finally finished his sandwich.

“Huh?” Keith snaps to attention. “Sorry, I zoned out.”

Lance shoots him a worried look before repeating himself. “What do you think about turning one of the classrooms into a dark room where we get the astronomy society to project constellations onto the ceiling?”

“Oh, uh, yeah. That sounds cool.” Keith says. “You don’t think kids will sneak in there to make out?”

“They definitely will,” Adam says, still marking a paper as he speaks. “At this point, I’ve given up.”

Lance nods to Keith, who starts turning a peculiar shade of red. “That’s thanks to us. We desensitized him.”

“No.” Adam stops and looks up. He slaps his red grading pen down. “You de_sanitized_ me. There’s a difference. I’m perfectly fine with yelling at horny teenagers at a school dance, but it’s another thing to walk into a room to find your brother-in-law and your ASB president in various states of undress in your class.”

“I had my shirt on!” Keith protests. “I totally had my shirt on.”

Adam points a finger at him. “Do you know how long Takashi laughed when I told him that? Do _not_ make me force you Clorox wipe every surface in here again. I hate all three of you.”

“I bet Shiro would let us install pillars of fire at the photo booth,” Lance whines. “Why is he the fun one?”

“First, this isn’t Carrie. Second, I’m the reason that none of you have been fired or arrested.” Adam says. “Third, I can be fun. I’m just not a dumbass.” The ‘unlike you three’ is insinuated.

With that, the classroom door is opened with a bang, and a cloud of curly white hair comes flying in. Allura comes in guns ablaze, a pile of textbooks in one hand and the other holding her phone up to her ear as she barks instructions into it.

“I’m telling you Rolo, we _have_ to have the Pep Rally planned by tomorrow. Yes, the assembly is Friday. No, it isn’t moving. Please do your job, I have enough going on.” She taps the end call button and tosses her stuff onto a nearby desk before throwing herself onto Lance’s shoulder and groaning. “Why did I think taking 4 AP classes, being student body vice president, and working part time would be a good idea? Please remind me. Also, can we murder Rolo for real this time?”

Lance wraps an arm around her shoulders. “There, there. Nothing more caffeine can’t solve.”

“I volunteer to kill Rolo and hide his body,” Keith offers.

Adam rolls his eyes. “We all know that you haven’t given up your vendetta against Rolo for standing Lance up sophomore year.”

“Exactly!” Keith cries. “He made my boyfriend sad; I’m allowed to not like him.”

Lance waves an arm. “It was your dramatic serenade outside my window that made me realize that I was only going with him to make _you_ jealous. If anything, you should thank him. And, speaking of dates,” Lance presses on, “How’s Romelle, Allura?”

Allura’s cheeks turn bright pink. “Fine,” she clips. “She’s fine.”

Lance has been working a master plan to get Allura with someone for the last three years. And that someone is the six-foot-tall, blonde, witty cheer captain. The cheer captain that Keith happens to hang out with at games and talk shit on the rival team with when they’re bored. The cheer captain that’s had a big fat crush on Allura for as long as Keith can remember.

“So you _have_ talked to Romelle?” Lance presses. “Or are you still skittering down the hallway every time you see her?”

“I talk to her! We talk!” Allura protests, but her blush remains.

“Have you talked to her about _prom_?” Lance continues. “Because like, we’re talking right now and that doesn’t mean you’re going to sweep me off my feet in two weeks.”

Keith thinks that he hears Adam whisper something along the lines of ‘she might as well, given how long it’s taking Keith to ask you.’ He goes to shoot Adam a dirty look, but he’s the picture of innocence flipping through the final papers in his stack.

Allura sighs and tugs at the hem of her skirt. “I don’t know. It’s okay, I mean, I doubt she even likes me anyways.”

Keith resists the urge to slam his head into the nearest wall.

Lance, as always, finds a more tactful way to express it. “You won’t know until you ask!” He chimes. “Look, I’ll help you plan it and everything. And Keith can figure out what she likes. Right Keith?”

Somehow, Keith feels like he’s been beguiled into participating. Except he loves Allura, and he loves Romelle, and he knows that they’re both crazy about each other and too stubborn to admit it, so he agrees.

He’ll find out what kind of flowers Romelle likes. He’ll talk to her at cheer practice. He’ll set up Allura and Romelle to have a perfect high school romance story that culminates with them kissing on the dance floor to the crooning voice of John Legend.

And somewhere along the way, he’ll figure out how to ask Lance too.

“Hey Lance, will you come with me to sign off on some stuff in the office?” Allura asks, effectively steering the conversation in the opposite direction of the whole Romelle situation. She hops to her feet and grabs her backpack. “We only have five minutes until lunch ends.”

Lance sighs, but it’s faux annoyance. “Ugh, the woes of the rich and famous.”

Keith rolls his eyes. “Go on, Rockstar. Whatever will I do without you?”

“Miss me, of course.” Lance declares, snatching his books off the desk beside him. His eyes are all warm honey and mirth when he looks at Keith. “See you after school?”

It’s moments like this, when Lance looks at Keith with all this unbridled affection, that melts him to his core. That he wonders how the hell he ever got this lucky.

“Yeah,” Keith replies, addressing neither question but answering both anyways.

Lance leans in, brushing his lips across Keith’s left cheek. “’Kay babe, love you! Bye Adam! Don’t forget to ask teachers about prom chaperones!”

“Mhm!” Adam says, not paying any attention at all.

“Bye Mr. Waseb! Bye Keith!” Allura calls as she starts walking toward the door. Lance jogs off to catch up with her.

Keith’s cheek still buzzes from Lance’s kiss.

Even after they’ve rounded the corner of the door and traipse down the hallway, Keith can still hear their voices echoing down the halls.

“So we need to get together the juniors to vote on prom prince and princess,” Allura says.

And then Lance: “Enough with that, how are you asking Romelle to prom?”

Allura’s accent gets thicker the more riled up she is. “Lance,” she hisses, and all the vowels run together. Their voices turn into murmurs, and from murmurs, whispers.

Keith looks back down at the copy of his paperback on his lap. He brushes his hand across the battered cover of Frankenstein. Keith knows what’s inside – careful annotation, notes about symbolism, prose, allegories for monstrous bodies. He flicks it open anyways.

Like an oracle, the words that blink back from the page read “Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it.”

He swallows. Keith has mere weeks to decide what he’s going to do next year, and he’s spent the last six months resolutely _not_ thinking about it. 

“Hey,” Adam says, pulling Keith from his thoughts. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”

Keith looks up. Adam has finished working through his stack of papers and is now rifling through another stack of loose papers on his desk.

“I found this talking to one of the guidance counselors a few days ago. And I thought it might be something you’d be interested in.” Adam brandishes a dark blue and white brochure.

Keith swallows and rises. “MARMORA UNIVERSITY,” the top lettering declares. “Home of the Blades.”

“What is this?” Keith asks, opening the pamphlet and flicking through staged photos of smiling students and what seems to be miles of rolling, photoshopped park space.

When he gets to the back page, with all the statistics about how Marmora is one of the best BA English schools in the nation, is when he understands what Adam’s trying to say.

“I –” Keith starts.

“ – Hey, no pressure.” Adam cuts him off. “I know that you were talking to Takashi about not knowing what to do after you graduate. And Marmora has a really good English and classic lit program with a lot of scholarship opportunities. You’ve missed the deadline for fall entry, but they’re a rolling admission system and you could apply to start in the spring.”

Keith swallows, imagining Shiro coming home from a lot day at the shop and curling up with Adam on their tiny couch, laughing into his shoulder as they sip on glasses of wine and swap stories about their work horror stories of the day. Shiro, talking to Adam about how he was worried about Keith, and now Adam gathering a semblance of a plan to help him put himself together.

“I can help you with your application, if you want?” Adam asks tentatively. “I don’t mean to pressure you into anything, and I swear this wasn’t Takashi’s idea, but I really think it might be a good fit for you. You’re a smart kid, Keith, and even more important, you’re a good kid.”

Inexplicably, Keith feels his chest growing tight. Standing in Adam’s classroom, the man who half-raised him when his mom was away and his adopted brother was struggling coming back from the service, Keith’s chest swells with the unmistakable feeling of love. He knows that it is love because he spent so long not knowing what it was that when it came, it came like a headlong rush. Like the taste of popsicles on a summer day, of ice cream on a porch at night. The kind of feeling that you can picture but never really replicate unless you’re in the moment that it happens.

“Yeah,” Keith croaks. “That would be really nice, actually.” He folds the brochure up and slips it into his notebook with the careful precision that he only has when he’s trying hard not to fuck something up. Not as in the brochure, as in this whole interaction. Keith feels like he’s walking on emotional eggshells with himself.

Adam, who knows Keith because he’s seen him through his emo phase, his teenage rebellion, and all his high school angst, walks about the island and settles his hand on Keith’s shoulder. “We’re family, okay? You don’t have to figure all of this out alone. Me, Shiro, Lance – we’ve got your back. I know it’s scary, but if it wasn’t scary, it wouldn’t be worth it.”

Keith nods, takes a deep breath, and then pulls himself together enough to give Adam a shaky smile. “Yeah,” he repeats. And then, steadier. “Yeah. Thank you.” 

Adam releases his shoulder and adjusts his glasses. The teasing sparkle in his eyes returns. “Now get back to brooding. And you better not have forgotten your book today.”

Keith waves the copy of Frankenstein in his hand. Then, just to piss Adam off: “But oh, bummer, I totally forgot a pencil.”

A few seconds later, a whole pack of HB2s nails Keith in the chest. Adam has another carton loaded in his hand. “Don’t.” He warns. “The freshmen are bad enough.”

* * *

The thing about football is that Keith likes pretty much everything but the game. And the part when he’s tacked into the ground by three-hundred pounds of sweaty teenage linebacker? Not his favorite.

But the locker room huddles, the high fives out the door, yanking on a jersey with his name on the back, watching Romelle do a backflip off a cheer pyramid, and finding his friends faces’ in the crowd? That’s the part that Keith loves.

When Keith throws the football in an arcing spiral, clear over the heads of the opposing team, and into the waiting arms of Ryan Kinkade, the up-and-coming sophomore star, the bleachers full of students roar with excitement. The grandstands rattle like incoming thunder. Keith watches Kinkade stop, look at the score board, look at the ball, and look back up at the score board in time to watch the numbers under ‘HOME’ change.

Overhead, the announcer rattles off the play.

“With fifty-three seconds left on the clock, Kogane throws a 30-yard touchdown to Kinkade to secure a 17-13 lead for the Altea Lions!”

Kinkade jogs to the huddle, where Keith gives him a fist bump and smiles. “Nice catch. Way to win us the game.”

“Nice throw.” Ryan just shoots back, grin nearly splitting his face. Kolivan only moved him up to varsity two games ago and Keith remembers what it felt like the first time he threw a winning touchdown. Like he could climb the world and then the stars.

They rally back on the line and watch their opponents, the Chargers, attempt for a field goal kick. Even if they make it, they won’t even tie the game. Keith watches their kicker line up the shot, and at the blow of the whistle, strike at the ball with his lead foot. It connects, soaring through the air while the rousing guest side of the field holds their breath.

The ball sails just outside the right goalpost. The Lions go wild.

Underneath the glow of the stadium lights, jogging next to his team while they prepare the customary Gatorade-cooler-throw on Kolivan, Keith struggles to imagine what life looks like past this. Past football, past high school, past the red jersey he’s worn like a badge for the last four years.

If the future is an open highway, Keith feels like everyone got a map of the interstate but him.

* * *

By the time Keith showered off from the game, gave a pep talk to their JV team, and was stopped to talk by a very eager man in a uniform-logo jacket, the evening has long since turned into night. He leaves the dark stadium, taking striding steps across the torn-up grass, and digs for his keys in his gym bag while slipping through the gates to the parking lot. The janitors are sweeping away the crushed cups and remainders of hot-dogs littered on the floor. Keith nods to them as he passes.

There are two cars left in the parking lot when Keith rounds the corner. One is Coran’s, the lively football announcer who never seems to leave the school (at this point Keith is convinced he’s a ten-thousand-year-old immortal being sent to guide teenagers on their life quest), and the other is his truck.

His truck, and more notably, Lance sitting on the edge of the bed, flicking through his phone.

“Hey,” Keith calls from halfway across the lot. “Lance!”

Lance snaps to attention, hopping off the truck when he sees Keith and jogging toward him. He’s carrying a bouquet of battered sunflowers in his left hand. When he collides into Keith, he wraps his arms around him and tugs tight. Keith smells cologne, faint under the scent of Lance’s sweat and the smell of popcorn on his skin.

“I brought you these,” Lance says, offering Keith the flowers when they break apart. “Do you remember – ”

“ – When you brought me flowers after my first varsity game?” Keith finishes. He reaches for the stems. “Yeah.” _I knew I loved you then_, he thinks, but that was freshman year, long before Keith was brave enough to do anything about his crush and before Lance had figured out that feeling like you constantly wanted to kiss your best friend wasn’t normal bromance behavior.

He reaches out to touch one of the petals, damp in the humidity. “Thank you.”

Lance tangles his hand with Keith’s free one and tugs him back toward the car. “It’s your last regular game of the season. And the last time I’ll see you play. And I love you. So, flowers.”

It isn’t until Keith has his keys in the ignition and is switching on his headlights when he realizes they’re missing a passenger.

“Where’s Allura?” Keith freezes, slamming on the brake pedal so hard that Lance wheezes when the seatbelt catches him in the gut.

He recovers in time to smirk at Keith. “I got Romelle to take her home. Or, more precisely, I got her to ask Romelle to give her a ride home.”

“And she did it?” Keith asks, eyebrows raised. Allura will go toe to toe with the scariest administrators in the district, annihilate anyone in a debate competition, and somehow wrestle eight hundred exhausted high school students into a gymnasium, but every time she’s around Romelle she seems to turn into a puddle of melted goo and remnants of language.

“I bargained with her.” Lance says, all singsong and smiles. “Hey, can I drive?”

“W-what?” Keith fumbles. (Ha, get it? Because he plays football?) “What do you mean, bargained?”

Lance is already unbuckling his seatbelt. Slowly, Keith follows suit, leaving the truck in park as he crawls over the center console and into the passenger seat. He doesn’t question Lance when he hops into the driver’s seat and slams the door shut, rolls the windows down, and flicks through a few radio stations before choosing one that seems to suit him and putting the car into reverse.

“You’ll see.” Lance says and gives him no more information. “Also, don’t look in the back.” Keith immediately goes to twist around. Lance whacks him on the thigh. “I said don’t!” Keith glances up in the rear-view mirror, but all he can see is what looks like a series of white lumps spread over the backseat. Lance catches him looking and jerks it sharply out of Keith’s view. “Cheater,” he teases.

They pull out of the parking lot to the sound of Jason Aldean, drive down main street and past the courthouse to Luke Bryan, and hop onto the interstate with Old Dominion shouting along with the whistling wind of the open windows. Keith relishes in the fresh breeze while he watches the rolling hills pass by. Somewhere between streetlights and exit signs, Keith tangles his hand with Lance’s and holds tight.

He doesn’t know where they’re going, only that Lance is moving like they have somewhere to be with a pile of pillows in Keith’s backseat. Which, speaking of, how did he do that?

“Did you break into my car?” Keith asks suddenly, interrupting Lance’s singing mid-chorus. “Lance?”

A mischievous smile comes over Lance’s face when answers. “I _technically _didn’t.”

“How do you not _technically_ break into my truck?” Keith, voice cracking into laughter.

“Okay, so,” Lance explains. “I used the key! You just weren’t with the key. Also, Romelle may gotten Kinkade to grab the key out of your gym bag so I could use it. I mean borrow it.”

Keith presses his hand to his forehead, still chuckling. “I’m going to kill them.”

“In my defense, you’re going to like the reason I had to do it.” Lance protests, reaching over across the console to grab Keith’s hand and squeezes.

Keith could trace the heart line on his palm from memory, could draw the scar on his left palm from falling down the front porch when he was little, knows how it feels to press his lips to those knuckles and watch Lance blush. “For real, where are we going?” He asks.

“I’m not telling you.”

“I hate surprises.”

Lance risks a glance at him out of the corner of his eye. “I know. It’s a good surprise.”

“That doesn’t make it any better, Lance.”

Lance hums, ignoring him, and jerks the truck off the highway and onto a side street. He drives twenty-odd feet down the road before pulling off the track and driving down a dirt road. Keith fiddles with the straps of his backpack.

Buried at the bottom is his application to Marmora. The copy of his application to Marmora, because he gave the original to Adam to mail earlier.

When he’d first read the essay question – “What does bravery mean to you?” - Keith’s initial instinct was to write about joining football. The troubled kid notorious for getting in fights with kids twice his size joins the high school football team and manages to not only succeed at the game, but bond with his teammates and make memories of a lifetime.

It sounded like the back of a book jacket for a Hallmark channel original novel. So he’d scrapped the essay and sat out his window, watching the breeze blow the leaves of the oak tree back and forth, and tried to think of something he’d done in his life that qualified as brave.

The thing is, Keith isn’t brave like Shiro, who came home from battle with half an arm and twice the resolution to succeed. He isn’t brave like Lance, who loves and lives unapologetically in every way. He isn’t brave like his mom, giving up her career to be there for Keith’s last years of high school.

He wrote about the bravery of forgiveness. Keith grew up bitter – bitter at his dad for leaving, which left a bad taste of charcoal in his mouth when the memories came wafting by. Bitter at his mom for spending most of Keith’s childhood searching the Sonoran Desert. Bitter at Shiro for leaving after he’d practically been Keith’s stand-in parent when his mom was gone. Bitter, the sour taste of loss in his mouth.

The thing Keith has learned about the past is that it isn’t about forgetting, it’s about reconciling. Knowing that things haven’t been always been good, but they have always been worth it. Knowing that people leave, and sometimes they don’t mean to hurt you when they do. And knowing that forgiveness may be earned, but love cannot be pressed. It sprouts on its own, the sunflowers in the backseat of a dirt pickup truck.

To forgive is to be brave enough to accept that the past cannot hurt you. To love is to beckon the future on the horizon.

With a sudden jolt, Keith’s truck comes to a halt. Keith snaps his head up to see that Lance has parked them in the middle of an open field, surrounded only by the occasional tree and miles of waving grass.

“Okay,” Lance says, switching off the entire and turning off the lights. “Stay here.” He pauses. “And close your eyes.”

Keith blinks at him. “What?”

“Close your eyes. Here.” Lance shrugs out of his flannel shirt and reaches for Keith, leaving him only in a thin white undershirt. He drapes the flannel over both of their heads and he leans in. The world around them grows dark, the only light shining through the fabric the distant moon.

Lance smells like familiar cologne. Lance smells like the night air and the damp grass. Lance smells the way cups of coffee on lazy Sunday mornings do. Lance smells like fresh washed linen and sheets that tangle in Keith’s legs. Lance smells like home.

“Give me a minute,” Lance tells him, and then leans in to press his lips against Keith’s for one insistent moment. He breaks away and shrugs off the flannel, leaving it draped over Keith’s head like a Halloween costume gone awry. “And no peeking!” Lance calls.

Keith hears him bound out of the truck and slam the door shut behind him. The back door is opened with a creak, and Lance wrestles something out of the backseat before closing the door again. The car shakes when he hops into the bed of the truck. There is a long stillness after that. Keith dutifully keeps his eyes closed but bounces his leg as he sits, right thigh moving up and down in anticipation.

The passenger door opens. Keith feels Lance’s hands tug at the blindfold and the flannel slips from his face. He opens eyes and blinks, adjusting to the darkness. Lance is smiling in the frame of the car door, head tilted in a fond way, eyes shining with softness. Keith’s breath catches in his throat.

“Hey darlin’,” Lance says as he takes Keith’s hand and pulls him out of the truck. Keith follows him blindly, because he would let Lance lead him into a thousand battles, into a thousand suns before he would let go of his hand.

There, in the bed of Keith’s pickup truck, are a pile of blankets and a few scattered pillows, , an old crank lantern, Lance’s guitar, and the sunflowers Lance had given Keith earlier propped up.

Keith’s breath catches. This is – this feels like a –

“Before you say anything,” Lance starts. “Hear me out.”

Keith swallows, because he thinks he knows where this is going, and his chest is wound tight like a thousand rubber bands.

“I know how stressed you’ve been about everything lately,” Lance continues. “And I know how worked up you’ve been about asking me to prom. Which is dumb, because you know I would have said yes no matter what you did.” A voice in the back of Keith’s mind that sounds suspiciously like Shiro says ‘_told you so.’ _Lance takes a deep breath and uses the wheel to boost himself into the bed. Keith follows slowly, feeling like he’s dreaming. “And when I asked you last year, I did that whole big public thing, which was cool or whatever, but I know that’s a lot more my style than yours. So.” He gestures to the surrounding items. “I thought I’d do something that’s a little more _us_.”

“Lance,” Keith whispers, and feels hot tears gathering in the corners of his eyes. “You didn’t – you shouldn’t –”

“I wanted to.” Lance interrupts. “I wanted to do this because I love you.” He fidgets and grabs for his guitar. “Now be quiet and let me serenade you.”

Keith chokes out a laugh. Through blurred vision, he watches Lance pull his guitar onto his lap and fidget with the fret.

“Anyways, here’s Wonderwall. Not.” Lance clears his throat. “Okay, for real this time.”

He strums the opening chord, and then, a half smile etched on his face as if he can’t quite believe what he’s doing, Lance starts to sing.

“I know it's a drag, I know it's a grind,” he starts, and Keith can’t stop the part-laugh, part-sob, and part-groan that escapes his mouth. “I know you get sick of this soul sucking town, but let's make a little lemonade if lemons is all we got.”

Lance’s grin widens. He doesn’t stop, just changes key and continues.

“'Cause I'm stuck on you, you're stuck on me, I never gotta wonder where my honey be.”

_Keith is sixteen again, standing outside a dark window in a haphazardly pressed suit with a radio dial turned up as loud as it could possibly go. He’s holding a bouquet of supermarket flowers that Shiro helped him pick out. He’s throwing rocks at Lance’s window and pressing rewind on the tape until he comes to the window. _

“Let's find a road we've never seen.” Lance’s eyes slip closed. His voice cuts the humid air, soft in all the ways that Keith forgets the world can be.

_He’s driving Lance home from work because he doesn’t have his license yet. It’s too hot for Keith to let Lance walk the two miles from the pool to his house, and secretly, he’ll do anything to spend more time with him. Lance, sunkissed tan skin and smiles, beaming in the passenger seat of Keith’s car, prattling on about his job and the coming school year and everything that shouldn’t be remotely interesting except Keith is stupidly head over heels for his best friend. Lance, twisting to ask Keith’s opinion on something at a red light, brushing his fingers over his skin and lighting every nerve on fire. _

_And there, at the intersection of Fifth and Adams, with his skin burning and the sky on fire behind him, Keith grabs Lance’s jaw and says, sure as anything, “I am going to kiss you now.” _

_The sun swallows them whole. The red light engulfs them. When Keith pulls away from Lance’s lips, the light changes to green, the moment changes, and their friendship changes. And Keith learns that change is not something to run away from. _

“Don’t waste another mile or minute not kissing me,” He raises his gaze to meet Keith’s stare as he comes to the last line. “Life is short, make it sweet.”

The last notes are escorted away by the soft breeze. Lance reaches for the bouquet of flowers. “I know I already gave you these, but can we pretend I didn’t for the sake of romance.” Keith laughs, feeling something wet trace unbidden down his cheek. The rubber bands all snap at once and his chest fills with warmth. Lance leans closer, his lips half an inch away from Keith’s, the sunflowers shoved between them and tickling the bottom of Keith’s chin. “So, Keith Kogane, what do you say? Will you go to prom with me?”

* * *

Like all good things, the year comes to an end. But that doesn’t mean that better things can’t come too.

The pile of unopened mail on Keith’s desk slowly diminishes. Keith fields off calls from prospective coaches and researches liberal arts scholarships instead.

When a gray envelope comes in the mail, offensive on Keith’s kitchen counter, he can’t bring himself to open it and he gives it to Shiro instead. There, in the light of the shop where Keith learned to piece cars, and by extension, himself, together, Shiro unfolds the crisp university letterhead with Adam peering over his shoulder.

“Bummer,” Shiro says when he unfolds the embossed sheet of paper. Keith’s heart slams into his shoes. It was a stupid dream; he shouldn’t have thought – “We’re really going to miss your help around here.” Shiro’s voice, shaking with a voice so proud it starts to shake when he meets Keith’s eyes. “You did it, kid.”

Adam maybe cries. A little. But he’ll totally deny it if you ask him. 

Keith jokingly orders Shiro and Adam two ‘Marmorite Dads’ t-shirts. And then, as an afterthought without the humor, orders a ‘Marmorite Mom’ one for Krolia too. She doesn’t take it off except to wash or hide when Lance comes over, because neither has told the other where they’re going next year. He lives in Schrodinger’s university dilemma. Keith and Lance are going everywhere and nowhere.

State championships comes and goes in a flurry of red and gold versus black and purple. Keith plays like he always does, recklessly full of life, breathing in the familiar scent of torn-up earth and lightning bugs scorched by stadium lights for the last time. When they raise the state trophy above their heads, victory a tangible alloy, Keith feels something lift off his chest. Something about direction and futures and pasts that made him but don’t define him. Lance facetimes him from the gymnasium, where he’s pulling a near-all-nighter with Allura and the rest of ASB to put on all the finishing touches for prom, and seeing his smile is the best part of Keith’s day, state title be damned.

Allura makes good on her bargain with Lance, which is that she would tell Romelle about her feelings if Lance would ask Keith to prom.

Both of them say yes, but Keith knew the outcome long before the question.

Shiro submits his application to renew his pilot’s license, this time not for active duty, but for an instructor’s certificate. Keith is the first one he takes out in a twin-engine jet he borrows from his old commander. He watches the earth fly past below them, their shadow racing the dips of the mountains and the curves of the river. He watches Shiro smile as they break through the clouds.

Prom is, for the most part, as expected. They gather at Lance’s house, crowding into his living room and snacking on Carmen’s homemade tamales and sofritos. All of them: Lance, Keith, Allura, Romelle, Pidge, and Hunk are dressed to the nines and goaded into posing with uncomfortably wide smiles while their parents take pictures. By the time they’ve made it to the car, Keith’s cheeks ache, half from the stilted photos and half from watching Veronica doodle alien antennas on Lance in every photo she posts on him. (“I’m never getting over that he designed a space themed prom and subjected me to hearing him say ‘It’ll be out of this world!’ eight hundred thousand times,” she tells him.)

They drive the three miles across town with the windows down. Romelle’s hair is swept out of her braid and Lance complains about his hair getting mussed, but it’s worth it to feel the smug warmth of a blessed summer night. Lance holds Keith’s hand the whole time, same iridescent blue nail polish he stole from Veronica freshly coated on each ring finger. (‘A placeholder’, Lance had said when Keith asked, and he was so caught off guard by Lance’s answer that all Keith could do was stare. ‘Hey guys!’ Lance called, “I broke Keith!’)

The actual dance is good too, good in the way where too-sweet punch stains everyone’s lips and mouths red and the DJ plays recycled love songs with no regards to the audience.

“Really?” Lance asks when the opening notes of the fifth Ed Sheeran song that night come on. “Who likes Ed Sheeran _this_ _much._”

“Yeah, someone does, and they’re the sweaty white dude currently manning the Spotify.” Keith peers up over Lance’s shoulder to see a familiar head bobbing along to the opening bars of Perfect. The remixed version. “Is that Rolo?”

The grimaced look on Lance’s face answers his question. Keith huffs and drops his chin onto Lance’s shoulder, stepping an inch closer to close the gap between him and Lance. He tries to look anywhere but Rolo, taking in the cut-out stars gusted in silver glitter on the ceiling, or the carefully lettered names of the prom royalty.

Where is he going to be a year from now? Still dancing with Lance under a sky dotted with pinpricks of stars? Here, if Keith closes his eyes, he can etch the smell of Lance’s cologne and the feeling of his warmth in his memory for the days they’re apart. Keith thinks suddenly of Marmora and the admission papers he’s working through.

They share another moment before something hits Keith on the shoulder. He reels back to see Adam standing against the gym wall, armed with a pile of dodgeballs. “No!” Adam shouts over the crowd admonishingly. “Not again!”

Keith flips Adam off and tugs at Lance’s wrist. “Come with me,” he says. “I have to talk to you.”

Lance just nods and follows him out of the crowd, pushing past entwined bodies and trying their best not to smash anyone’s toes. On their way out, Lance taps Keith’s shoulder and points his attention halfway across the dancefloor where Romelle is carefully guiding Allura’s hand onto her shoulder as she teaches her to dance. Keith takes in Allura’s nervous smile as Romelle slides her hand around her lower back, and conversely, Romelle’s determined grin as she swings into the rhythm.

Keith half tumbles over Lance on their way out of the gym. It’s just that he’s stunning, chasing Keith through the hallway. He’s stunning, following Keith into the moonlight. He’s stunning, smiling in a suit and tie in the way that makes Keith promise to go in the sun more, just to someday have a tan where left knuckle meets ring finger.

“I love you,” Keith says as they collapse on the front steps, hands and limbs still tangled. He leans in, kisses Lance like he’s starving for it, because he is. He’s so full of love and so hungry to give it that the words spill out unbidden. “I love you in the mornings when you wake up grumpy, and I love you in the afternoons when you’re tired, and I love you on the nights you’re at your worst. I love you before you’ve had your coffee, and I love you when you don’t do the dishes, and I love you when you take forever to do laundry because you separate all the colors like an adult person.” He pauses to take a breath.

“What I’m trying to say is this. I love you so fucking much, Lance, and I know that we’re going off to college, but no amount of miles is ever going to be too far if it’s your voice that I get to hear at the end of the day, even if it’s through a phone call. I – I don’t know where you’re going, because I know we promised not to talk about it, but I think I have to tell you. I got into Marmora University, and I think I’m to go.” Lance’s face comes alight, and he opens his mouth to say something, but Keith can’t stop now that he’s started saying all this in case he loses his nerve, so he presses through Lance’s exclamation. “I know it’s kind of far from here, but I want you to know that I’ll do whatever it takes to still get to be the one who stands by your side, even if we’re a thousand miles away. So uh, that’s it. What I wanted to tell you.”

Lance launches himself across the gap of concrete between them and practically topples Keith with his hug. “Sweetheart, first of all I’m so proud of you. And second, while nothing in the universe could tear me away from you, I don’t think that’s going to be a real big problem for us.”

Keith blinks, loosening his grip on Lance’s shoulders to look at him.

“I’m going to Olkarion for Marine Bio,” Lance says, releasing Keith halfway to press their knees and hands together instead. 

“Oh,” Keith says. And then stronger – “Oh!”

“Which is like, a half hour away from Marmora,” Lance continues. He shrugs, a soft smile growing. “It looks like you’re stuck with me.”

“I’m stuck _on _you,” Keith corrects. “And I’m not going anywhere. Not anymore. Not ever, if you’ll have me.”

He closes the space between them again.

“I’m okay with that,” Lance says, breathless, when they pull back to breathe. “You have no idea how okay with that I am.”

And whether Keith really does know or not, the answer is inconsequential. He has forever to find out, anyways.

-

things I googled for this

what is Friday night lights?

Friday night lights pirate link

what material are car steering wheels made out of (the answer is polyurethane which does not have an abbreviation and that was Not Sexy for poetry reasons so I decided it was going to be plastic)

how much water is in a swimming pool

**Author's Note:**

> *yeehaw emoji*  
Thank you SO much for Autumn (kirargent/[lesbianlura](https://lesbianlura.tumblr.com)) for encouraging me to write this and helping me along the way and reading all my midnight drafts. I love you!  
And Wren, for the awesome prompts and a reason to write this!! I hope you enjoyed.  
You can find me [happyleakira](https://happyleakira.tumblr.com) on tumblr!


End file.
